by Jbs081309 d3 — August 17, 2009—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced that construction is underway for the McNary-John Day transmission project in Oregon and Washington, funded by $343 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The project, part of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) transmission system, is expected to deliver more than 575 megawatts (MW) of wind-generated power across the West by early 2012.
DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) explains that the 79-mile McNary-John Day line will run from the McNary Substation in Oregon, across the Columbia River into Washington, and back into Oregon, where it will end at the John Day Substation. It is one of four proposed transmission lines that together would add 225 miles of high-voltage power transmission to the Pacific Northwest, delivering about 2,800 MW of renewable energy to the region.
EERE notes that other transmission projects in the works include the Green Power Express by ITC Holdings Corp., designed as a network of transmission lines that would carry up to 12,000 MW of wind power from the Upper Great Plains to the Midwestern cities; two Kansas and Oklahoma projects, Tallgrass and Prairie Wind, that would string a combined 400 miles of 765-kilovolt transmission lines across the two states; and the Southwest Intertie Project (SWIP), a 500-kilovolt transmission line stretching 500 miles between Idaho and southern Nevada, along with Overland Intertie, a 560-mile transmission link to SWIP planned to run between southern Idaho and eastern Wyoming.
For more information, see the DOE Web site.
